Following a year and a half of construction, Aurora Cooperative and CHS on April 2, 2015 formally opened their 5-millionbushel Superior East LLC rail terminal east of Superior, NE (402-879-0143).

“This project is core to our strategic plan, and, with CHS as an equal partner, we were able to construct, finance, and operate the facility. We recognized many years ago that our existing grain elevator complex (an in-town elevator in Superior) would not meet our future farmers’ demands of a high-speed, high-expectation operation,” said George Hohweiler, Aurora Cooperative president and CEO, during the facility’s grand opening. (Aurora, which is a CHS member-owner, is the day-to-day operating partner of the joint venture.)

“We were looking for more access to the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway),” Chad Carlson, Aurora vice presidentgrain, told Grain Journal in a phone interview in June 2015. “This also provides another destination option for our farmer-owners in the southern part of our territory.”

The Superior East elevator and loop track is located less than a mile east of another rail-loading terminal opened by Agrex Inc. about five years ago along State Highway 8. Carlson noted that this hasn’t caused any problems, with plenty of grain to originate for both facilities in that part of south central Nebraska and north central Kansas.

The terminal includes a 1.25-million-bushel slipform concrete elevator, three ground piles, and an 8,000-foot loop track that can hold up to 120 covered hopper railcars.

To construct this complex, Superior East selected Todd & Sargent, Inc., Ames, IA (515-232-0442), which also built the Aurora Cooperative’s relatively new rail loader at the west end of Aurora, NE. “They have a track record of building high-quality facilities, and during the selection process, they came out on top,” said Carlson.

Construction began in late fall 2013. Todd & Sargent poured the slip in May 2014, and the terminal began taking grain in December.Cost of the project is undisclosed.

“We have shipped a significant amount of multiple commodities by 110-car unit trains since January 2015,” Southern Regional Manager Todd Bellis told Grain Journal during a visit to the site in May 2015. (Bellis came to Aurora Cooperative five years ago from another farmer-owned cooperative.)

The Comco system automatically routes trucks to one of two enclosed 1,200-bushel mechanical receiving pits.These pits feed a pair of 30,000-bph InterSystems legs outfitted with two rows of Maxi-Lift 14x8 Tiger-Tuff buckets mounted on a 30-inch belt or a 20,000-bph leg with a single row of 20x8 buckets on a 22-inch belt.

The smaller leg deposits grain into a Schlagel six-hole rotary distributor. From there, grain can be routed via 20,000-bph InterSystems drag conveyors out to upright storage or to the center-fill storage pile. The two larger legs can reach the overhead drags or can send grain directly to rail loadout.

Grain also can be routed to a 7,000- bph, natural-gas fired Zimmerman tower dryer. Location Manager Connor Hiebner, who moved to Superior East in January from Aurora Cooperative, says the dryer is set up to switch to propane fuel, as economics dictate. The dryer, which is serviced by 20,000-bph InterSystems wet and dry legs, has had relatively little use since startup, he says, but has performed well on the bushels it did dry.

The concrete tanks empty onto a 60,000-bph InterSystems enclosed belt conveyors in a below-ground tunnel running back to the receiving legs.

Operating at full capacity for rail loading, the legs and their distributors can deposit grain into an 80,000-bph InterSystems bulk weigh loadout scale under the control of a Cultura oneWeigh® automation system. During loadout operations, workers atop railcars utilize a Fall Protection Systems trolley unit running the length of three railcars.

“Overall, the performance (of the terminal) has been good,” Bellis says. “The producers are excited about it, and it has a lot of support in town.”

He notes that the Aurora Cooperative elevator in Superior remains in operation.